Bitcoin Utopia will be raising fundraising for Seti@home. Great news!

http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/forum_thread.php?id=611

---

Great idea!

Count me in.

Guess I'll set up another account to contain the hyperinflated bitcoin credits, though...

P.S: Is it okay to have multiple BOINC accounts?

---

Yes! Many folks here have several BOINC accounts. Always good to have a backup account if primary account not currently online or sending out new work (as is currently the SETI@Home situation). Also many people have various interests they might wish to support, such as astronomy, finding extraterrestrial life (as per SETI), or medical research.

Yes! Many folks here have several BOINC accounts. Always good to have a backup account if primary account not currently online or sending out new work (as is currently the SETI@Home situation). Also many people have various interests they might wish to support, such as astronomy, finding extraterrestrial life (as per SETI), or medical research.

How would you do that? Setting up another account I mean. Sorry - should have announced myself :/

Airhead in the room... also answers to anniet :)

Use a different e-mail address.

Bitcoin Utopia will be raising fundraising for Seti@home. Great news!

http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/forum_thread.php?id=611

Excellent! I've already enabled Campaign #5 sgminer for my hosts.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Just out of curiosity, how can you tell if the value of the coins you mine is greater than the cost of the electricity you use to mine them?

Milkyway gained over $3,000 in fundraising from Bitcoin Utopia. This has potential to be significant for the funding Seti needs.

---

Milkyway gained over $3,000 in fundraising from Bitcoin Utopia. This has potential to be significant for the funding Seti needs.

That doesn't actually answer my question. If that $3,000 required more than $3,000 in electricity to generate it, then it's a net loss to the project (versus direct contributions equivalent to the electric costs) and environmentally costly at the same time.

So, to figure out if it's advantageous or not, it seems to me that there needs to be a way to come up with some sort of cost / benefit ratio for this kind of approach. Is there?

Short answer: Bitcoin mining on CPUs or GPUs isn't profitable.

But, since I don't mind donating CPU power to seti, I also don't mind diverting a small fraction of said CPU power to bitcoin utopia.


Cheers
Hans

---

Milkyway gained over $3,000 in fundraising from Bitcoin Utopia. This has potential to be significant for the funding Seti needs.

That doesn't actually answer my question. If that $3,000 required more than $3,000 in electricity to generate it, then it's a net loss to the project (versus direct contributions equivalent to the electric costs) and environmentally costly at the same time.

So, to figure out if it's advantageous or not, it seems to me that there needs to be a way to come up with some sort of cost / benefit ratio for this kind of approach. Is there?

Different coin types have different profit/power expense ratios. BitCoins are not profitable to mine on CPU or GPU hardware any longer, but there other coin types that are. Bitcoin Utopia mixes various coin types in each Campaign

Since my hardware will be running other projects while waiting for SETI@home work anyway. Why not help out the project while it is offline or out of work.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Milkyway gained over $3,000 in fundraising from Bitcoin Utopia. This has potential to be significant for the funding Seti needs.

That doesn't actually answer my question. If that $3,000 required more than $3,000 in electricity to generate it, then it's a net loss to the project (versus direct contributions equivalent to the electric costs) and environmentally costly at the same time.

So, to figure out if it's advantageous or not, it seems to me that there needs to be a way to come up with some sort of cost / benefit ratio for this kind of approach. Is there?

Sorry Jeff-my post wasn't meant to be a reply to your question. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

I just believe this fundraising opportunity will be a benefit to Seti@Home based on my experience as the Liaison between the Milkyway project and BU

---

Just out of curiosity, how can you tell if the value of the coins you mine is greater than the cost of the electricity you use to mine them?

Some can't or don't want to donate money directly but gladly donate electricity via computations. If project need money more that raw computations and some another project can give money in exchange of computation then that look good bargain even if energy spent will cost more than project in question (SETI in out case) will recive as real money.

Of course would be better to donate directly but... good to have some other options too. Also, some of BOINC participants bought specialized BitCoin ASIC's.
That hardware can't be used in SETI directly in any way. But via such fundrising even this piece of useless silicon (at least from SETI-fan point of view) can be used ;)

My machines started running out of work on Saturday and, since there are no other BOINC projects that I currently support, I shut them down as the WUs ran out. Checking my electric usage from Saturday through Monday, I can see that I've used 64.24 Kwh less than the same period in the previous week. At Tier 4 Off-Peak Winter rates, that translates into a $17.53 cent reduction in my electric cost for those 3 days.

Now, I suppose I could fire up those machines again to run Bitcoin Utopia, but I seriously doubt that 64.24 Kwh of usage would generate $17.53 in benefits for S@h. In fact, I'm going to hazard a guess that it wouldn't even generate 80% of that amount. (I could certainly be wrong about that, but that's why I was asking my original question.) Frankly, I'd rather save my electricity (and the environment) and turn some of my savings directly over to S@h. So, using my 80% guesstimate, I'll put my money where my mouth is:

Your gift details…

You gave to: SETI@home

We received your gift of $14.00

via xxxxxxxxx on 11/19/2014.

Your confirmation number is 139610.

My machines started running out of work on Saturday and, since there are no other BOINC projects that I currently support, I shut them down as the WUs ran out. Checking my electric usage from Saturday through Monday, I can see that I've used 64.24 Kwh less than the same period in the previous week. At Tier 4 Off-Peak Winter rates, that translates into a $17.53 cent reduction in my electric cost for those 3 days.

Now, I suppose I could fire up those machines again to run Bitcoin Utopia, but I seriously doubt that 64.24 Kwh of usage would generate $17.53 in benefits for S@h. In fact, I'm going to hazard a guess that it wouldn't even generate 80% of that amount. (I could certainly be wrong about that, but that's why I was asking my original question.) Frankly, I'd rather save my electricity (and the environment) and turn some of my savings directly over to S@h. So, using my 80% guesstimate, I'll put my money where my mouth is:

Your gift details…

You gave to: SETI@home

We received your gift of $14.00

via xxxxxxxxx on 11/19/2014.

Your confirmation number is 139610.

My home machine are on because they are doing other tasks rather than purpose built to run SETI@home. If I was paying as much per KW/h as you. I would probably let mine run idle rather than run other projects. Running SETI@home adds ~8-9 KW/h a day to my usage. I have found running Bitcoin Utopia adds ~6-7 KW/h a day.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

My home machine are on because they are doing other tasks rather than purpose built to run SETI@home. If I was paying as much per KW/h as you. I would probably let mine run idle rather than run other projects. Running SETI@home adds ~8-9 KW/h a day to my usage. I have found running Bitcoin Utopia adds ~6-7 KW/h a day.

Only my little old ThinkPad actually needs to run 24/7, and it only manages a couple of WUs per day on its single-core Pentium M. My daily driver only needs to be on about 14 or so hours a day, but I was running it 24/7 just to support S@h. Now, since it's out of work, it gets shut down before I go to bed. My other 4 active machines were cobbled together just for S@h.

My electric rates are tiered over the course of each month, and also have on-peak and off-peak periods over the course of each week. The lowest (Tier 1) rates are only about 37% of the highest (Tier 4) rates, but only about 14% of my usage gets that lowest rate, while about 55% is at the highest rate. I don't even run the crunch-only machines during the peak periods, because that would really jack up my costs!

In any event, I know what my rates are, and I know how much juice each machine uses, so it would definitely be possible for me to figure out what any payback would be from something like Bitcoin Utopia, if the production rate was available. However, I haven't seen anything to indicate what that might be. I suspect, though, that any crunchers who want to put cash in the projects offers, and who don't have very cheap electricity, would be better off making direct contributions.

This time of year, for many of us living in the northern hemisphere a reduction in electricity usage means an increase in some alternate form of house heating. My rural location in northern New York about 60 miles from the border with Canada is certainly that way.

64.24 kilowatt hour = 219195.96867 Btu (per http://www.onlineconversion.com/energy.htm)

The cost of that alternate energy supply would of course reduce the "savings" in electricity cost. And because about 47% of the electricity supply here is derived from sources with no CO2 byproduct, my Carbon footprint would be higher when using something else.

The same details of course factor into the cost of bitcoin mining. It could be profitable during cold months and unprofitable during hot months, for instance.

                                                                   Joe

The SETI@home Campaign is going live this weekend.
http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/forum_thread.php?id=622#6491

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

The SETI@home Campaign is going live this weekend.
http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/forum_thread.php?id=622#6491

Where they post rules for such events? What exactly participant should do to bring money to SETI@home? Would be nice to see such guidance for absolute novice too.

EDIT: and what control mechanisms to check if donated computation time was converted to money for SETI@home as expected ?

Where they post rules for such events? What exactly participant should do to bring money to SETI@home? Would be nice to see such guidance for absolute novice too.

Here is some info:

http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/forum_thread.php?id=303

EDIT: and what control mechanisms to check if donated computation time was converted to money for SETI@home as expected ?

Honestly, It's a matter of trust. I can vouch that the appropriate amount was donated to Milkyway.

I would recommend asking more over on their forums, Raist.

---